Gaga for GLEE!

It happened to me. I was overtaken by Gleek fever. And according to this year's Emmy nominations, apparently the rest of us were too.

Congratulations to Glee! for 19 Emmy nominations! It's so wild. I've never heard of a TV show getting that many nods in my life.

But instead of harping on about how amazing, clever, fresh, and well-cast the show is, I'd instead like to focus on the episode that I believe was the most special of the whole series. And that of course is Theatricality--the Lady Gaga tribute episode!

Both the tribute episodes, "The Power of Madonna" and "Theatricality", were defiantly two of the best episodes in the first season, but Theatricality goes above and beyond in musical numbers, emotional depth, and intensity.

In this episode, Glee club learns the joys of living life theatrically, with unabashed self expression and your freak flag flying high. Among many issues, this episode deals with gay rights and the scrutiny people face for being different, leading viewers to some of the most colorful and emotional scenes in the whole season.

If you're a fellow Gleek, then you know all about the witty one-liners the writers sprinkle into the show. This flashy episode is full of quotes to LOL and ponder at.

• "My mom won't even let me watch Twilight. She said Kristen Stewart seems like a bitch." -Tina
• "I'm going to put together a palette that expresses who you are and who I want you to be...Who you want to be." -Kurt
• "What's up with this Gaga dude? Doesn't he just dress weird, right? Like Bowie." -Puck 
• "Even though I'm painfully shy and obsessed with death, I'm a really effervescent person." -Tina
• "You look terrible. I look awesome." -Brittany
• "The reason I'm here right now, in a shower curtain, is because of you." -Finn
• "I swear to you I will never change. I'm proud to be different. It's the best thing about me." -Kurt
• "We're all freaks together, and we shouldn't have to hide it." -Finn

Many would probably say that the best thing about Theatricality was the quality of the music numbers. If you've been following the season, then you know that some of the music numbers don't quite add up to the others. Some are just OK. But Theatricality delivers four numbers that are each very impactful in their own way.

Rachel and Ms. Corcoran's "Poker Face" could melt your heart, and the intent in Puck's eyes as he sings Kiss's "Beth" to Quinn is 100% believable.  But in my opinion, their version of "Bad Romance" really stole the show.



Apart from extremely jealous, this performance made me feel happy above all else. I loved watching them all swinging their claws and gritting their teeth while they rocked it out in those crazy outfits. I believe behavior like this is healthy. Theatricality is healthy. We can do nothing but gain from acting this way--abandoning inhibitions and surrendering to true self expression and exultation.

I appreciated Glee so much for making this episode, and ultimately, it made me appreciate Lady Gaga in a whole new way that I hadn't before.

It used to be cults like Rocky Horror Picture Show that preached the joys of living larger than life and without inhibitions. Now, Lady Gaga is bringing that message into the mainstream so that everyone has a chance to discover it. Now that we can celebrate the theatricality and raw, passionate energy of an artist like Lady Gaga, those who were previously unwilling are now able to see that it's OK to let go. It's OK to be a freak if that's how you feel.

Thank you Lady Gaga and Glee for giving hope to all the little monsters out there, and keeping the Rocky Horror Picture Show message alive--Don't dream it, be it!

Flash Delirium

When MGMT's Oracular Spectacular came out about a year ago, I decided that I didn't want to buy into that whole scene. I enjoyed the album at first, but was majorly turned off by the crowd they attracted--you know, the Urban Outfitters/Clothing Warehouse hipster type. I therefore took their experimental style as the band trying to cater to that particular (trendy) crowd.

I am happy to say now that I think I was wrong.

Dubbed as "anti-christ" by a population of YouTube viewers, MGMT's new song and video, Flash Delirium, is weird. Like, John Waters/Rocky Horror Picture Show weird. And I am so, so happy that any kind of artist today is capable of envisioning and achieving that kind of absurdity.

The song itself is written in an uncanny way, even more so than songs from their first album. The lyrics are written in Dada fashion with lines of ridiculous, disconnected prose like "The hot dog's getting cold/And you'll never be as good as the Rolling Stones".

And then there's the video, which acts as a both a harmonious and an unexpected representation of the song's quirkiness and absurdity.

The video starts out with the band's front members, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden, arriving at a Welcome Home party in a lavish mansion. A group of mostly elderly people wearing high society, 60/70s fashion people greets them. It's very Royal Tenenbaums. 

The video's progression leads us through an odd series of images/events including robotic, strained dance numbers, ventriloquist doll chants, and mouths singing from throats--all paired with ostentatious references to phallism, anal sex play, fallacio, and apocalyptic destruction.

After seeing and hearing Flash Delirium, I don't doubt MGMT anymore. I really think that they are genuinely weird, not faking it like all the cultural hacs out there. It turns out we might just be kindred spirits with each other ^_^ 

I am so happy to see something weirdly erotic, disturbed, and Dada by a current artist. I almost thought musicians just weren't strange anymore.

I am a Frankie Fan

Today I made the most delightful of rediscoveries--I am still, completely a Frankie Fan. It dawned upon me again when I put on my Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack for the first time in months. As soon as the opening piano chords for Science Fiction/Double Feature poured through my speakers, I smiled at the happy memories of applying drag make up in my mother's bathroom mirror, running up and down the streets of conservative neighborhoods in my fishnets and corset, and screaming orgasmically in the seats of many Rocky Horror screenings. I am alive few places like I am at a Rocky Horror masquerade. I arrive with my feet stuffed into black mary janes, my breasts stuffed into a gold sequin tube top, and my eye sight blurred by long, colorful fake eyelashes. I sing loudly and move my hips dramatically while I dance to show off my knowledge to any virgin who may be in the crowd.

I often fall into fantasies of what I want my life to be--how I want to look, act, and play. Rocky Horror Picture show falls so much in line with my fantasies. If I could live anywhere I would want to be a transsexual, Transylvanian curled by Dr. Frankenfurter's side, living only for excess and pleasure. I dream of lying on a black and white tiled floor in a psychedelic haze, covering my scantily clad body in a feather boa. I dream of taking center stage at a floor room show and singing soulfully about the darkest depths of my heart to a room full of adoring freaks. Because at Frankenfurter's lair, everything is a reason to to put on a show. I dream of smoky Zen rooms, orgies, pansexuality, half naked dinner parties--all the things that mean freedom to me.

I feel most of the time that I dream to be a work of fiction. I will never be able to be exactly what I want. All my desires of flambouancy, gender bending, ball room dance shows, free love, and never ending music and ecstacy are too wild and unnattainble for this world. The Rocky Horror Picture Show may have given me a great deal of unrealistic exceptations from a young age, but it is also the only thing that gives me a taste of the life I want. Whenever I go to a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening I feel like I'm being given a brief moment of my fantasy life. I'm in a place where many others like myself have gathered together to throw away their social norms and gender's confides for one night to engage in a night of unhibited bliss. I'm surrounded by a room full of people dressed to the tee in their finest homemade drag fashions, screaming dirty lines at the top of their lungs, stimulated at the sight of homoerotisicm and cross dressing. To love the Rocky Horror Picture Show isn't just love of a film...it's a way of life. It's a wide perspective on a world that tries to hold so many down. Maybe one day I will have my own Rocky Horror fantasy. Maybe I will be the owner of a secret lair like Frankenfurter where only other rich weirdos come to play. Perhaps I shouldn't resign my fantasies to mere works of fiction. After all, what does Frankenfurter tell us all? Don't dream it, be it.